Life as I know it.....

she blogs....

2009-11-14T20:41:00.002Z

Nearly a whole year since I blogged!
Just getting back in to the online world now so watch out, dear blog, I'll update with lots later!

In the meantime I signed up to be in with a chance to win some fabby blog candy,,,,

http://jacquesmagnolias.blogspot.com/2009/11/papilio-and-some-sweet-stuff-for-you.html

A fab blog with fab inspirational cards!

2008-11-30T23:40:00.002Z

Brrrrr, it's absolutely freezing here! Have the kettle on for the hot water bottle as I write and the two furry hot water bottles are in place!

Didn't get much crafting done this weekend, one card featuring a Magnolia stamp and WRMK and basic Grey papers which I made for a dear friend and regular reader of the bloggo!

Next up was this LO with BG Urban Prairie papers, aren't they gorgeous. The pic is Natasha - my niece - and her boyfriend Neil celebrating their 1st month anniversary, aw isn't life just dandy when you're 14 .... and a half!! They exchanged pressies of perfume and aftershave (LOL!) on this auspicious occasion and a few weeks after their true love hit the dust - aww! They were a cute couple though abd I thought that whilst Natasha wouldn't be too appreciative of my creative efforts right now, maybe in a few years she'd like to have this..
Do you know I think I'm inspired to make a LO of my first love now too. Watch this space!

Maura and I went to see The Changling tonight starring Angelina Jolie, brill movie, really good! But I have a small quibble, in most of the film Ang has her lips in a bright red lipppy and goddamn it but they're BIG! Really distracting! Ewww!!

Two twelve hour days coming up at work thanks to the increase of 1/2% in vat, what joy! Still I have Thursday off ibstead so I guess I can't complain, might get some more crafting done then.

Moving on...

2008-11-27T11:42:00.015Z

First off a huge thank you and hugs to everyone who sent me messages of support via here, email, text, phone calls etc regarding my last post. Thanks so much girls, it meant a lot. I sometimes forget that other people read this blog as it's primarily my little diary so I was really touched that so many of you contacted me.

As the title says "moving on".... and I am, life is a thousand times better to be honest. It could be a bit better if I got a chunk of the Lotto but we won't dwell on that! There have been a few dips along the way re my ex but I'm not going to dwell on that either. The hardest part is over.

I feel blessed that I am in a happier place emotionally, much more content and peaceful and so lucky to have marvellous friends and of course my two furry hot water bottles - the catz! I enjoy living by myself and the quietness of it, ex was inclined to have tv blaring from the minute he got up. My scrapping mojo has returned, just wish I had the time now to do all the pieces rambling around in my head!

I bought a Canon 450d so I'm trying to get to grips with it, huge learning curve from my compact sony cybershot. Maura and I joined a camera club. Nice crowd going to it. They don't "do" a lot though bar looking at each other's pics so I may join a more proactive club later on.

I am loving Magnolia stamps at the moment. So relaxing colouring them and they're so damned cute!!!! Here's a few and also a Stamping Bella baby one:

The crop on 16th November was fabby!!! Great crowd and oh myyyyyy godddddd - fantastic shopping!!!! I kinda have a rule with myself that I would spend a max of €50 per month at the crop which is the total usually of my craft shopping - ya I know I'm a cheapskate by some people's standards but my crafting has to fit my budget not the other way - budget has to fit crafting!!! heee heee!
BUT this month's crop far exceeded that. CardznScraps aka Cork Art Supplies - www.cardznscrapz.com had some fantastic stash which just had to come home with me! Absolutely loved the WRMK Nonsense range. Got a couple of LO's made last Sunday with it

Then JunieD was having a mega sale of all her crafting gear as she's getting out of crafting - oh to be young and have a life!!! - so there were bargains galore to be had, got some fabbalicious stuff from her, thanks Junie hun!!

This is the LO we made at the crop - Can't believe blogger is letting me upload all this stuff, I've had such problems with it before!

Finally these are the final 2 LO's I made last Sunday, such a bad day, it wasn't fit for anything else except crafting and eating chocolate!

The next crop is SATURDAY Dec 13th and there's lots of crafting that day. A Christmas / winter mini book featuring acrylic and chipboard, a LO from the same kit and a non Christmas themed LO. A few spaces left so if you want in text/phone 087 2925710.

2008-10-12T12:10:00.004+01:00

Well, I don't suppose I thought it was going to be so easy that he'd just drive off yesterday at 9.20a.m. and that would be that. He came back at 2.20p.m. Isn't it amazing, for ages and ages I've been asking him to come home after work on Saturdays so we could DO something together or just do nothing and for the longest time he's been telling me he works till 5p.m. on Saturdays (lie!) and then of course he doesn't stagger in till the pub closes. And then when it's too late he CAN do it. Though I have been telling him for the longest time that there is no future for us he is in total shock and denial that his lunatic wife is doing this to HIM for NO REASON. Yep, he is faultless in his opinion in all this. All thats bothering him is where will he go, as to the where I simply do not CARE! He has family,,,,such as they are. he has buddies from the pub that he spent so much time with, there are b&b's, hotels, bloody homeless shelters somewhere!

I refused to let him in again. Helen's friend who's a drug/addiction counsellor told her to tell me that is the right course of action. Right it may be but it's not easy. I wonder what is the damage to my own pysche of acting such a bitch. But then on the other hand I ask myself what is the damage his addiction has done to it already.

He asked for MY brother's number, another roaring alcopop!, I refused to give it, asking him what made him think my brother would be at home on a saturday afternoon anymore than himself usually. I told him to go away or I would be calling the guards. This is something I don't wish to do .... currently. he still wouldn't leave so off with the mad woman and her sweeping brush and started hitting the windscreen of the car, this is NOT pretty and I make no excuses for it, it is something that has to be done. That made him move, his precious car being hurt. So he drove off.

He did arrive at my brother's house and propped up the bar counter with him for a while till the bro had to come home early and recuperate for today's session. He stayed on in the pub. He was not in brother's house this morning so we, my sis and I, don't know where he stayed nor care less either! I could have lived without him going to the small village I'm from. THE CHEEK OF IT.

Anyway on a positive note I had the first Saturday night's uninterrupted sleep for a long, long time. Mind you sleep is sparse enough these nights. No getting up to let in someone who was too drunk to get his key in the keyhole and to turn off the TV, heating, cooker, smoke alarm, take your pick. Yep just me and my two boyz - the cats. Poor little mites, this must be all so confusing for them.

I am trying to focus on the positive that WILL come from all this, I need to dispel all the negativity.

It does help writing it down and not "disowning" it anymore.

Catching up....

2008-10-11T10:25:00.003+01:00

Hey Blog, It's been a while and then some so here's the rundown.
The synopsis - this past 12 months have been a bitch in some ways and quite good in some others. But you know what they say, what doesn't kill you makes you stronger.

The job is going grand, even got a small raise a while back, maybe that should read minscule :-)
I can't say that working till 10p.m. on Wednesday nights makes me ecstatic but apart from that it's ok.
I work with a great group of people who have been very supportive to me these last few weeks and for that I'm grateful.

The crop is going great, I do love my croppers! We had a great time at the birthday bash, where did that year go to. I was delighted that Eva and Mireille agreed to do a workshop each for it. Mireille brought her Crafteire shop which was jam packed full of goodies. And of course not forgetting Jeany who is the crop's resident shop, she always has fabby embellies. Angie and Gillian won the challenge, a LO commemorating a birthday or anniversary and it had to have a purple element in it. There were gorgeous entries so I was glad that Mireille did the judging.
Eva took some fabby pics, thanks babes!

One of the girls at work asked me to make a card for her a while ago and since I've been getting card orders every week, some weeks more than others and I kinda look forward to the quiet weeks now! Only 2 to make this weekend. I make them A5 and charge a fiver and no two are evr the same. They're going down a treat so far, bought a Lidl sewing machine with some of the proceeds and I'm investing the rest in going to Annamarie's and Lainey's Megscrap event on Nov 1st. Really looking forward to it as Donna Downey is teaching 2 mini books and Anita Mundt is doing a LO class and a photograhy one. Flying up the night before and staying at the hotel that night.

I got a laptop, a gorgeous PURPLE one, so gorgeous and so much more useful that having to go to the library or the robbing internet cafe all the time. I got hooked up with Vodafone mobile broadband and it's slowish but adequate.

The cats are doing well, RobbiRay was at the vets on Thursday with a respiratory infection, he's always getting int scrapes, he should have come with a VHI card! During the summer he got bitten on the tail by a feral cat and nearly lost said tail. Buster is Buster, a living teddy bear :-)

As some of you know I was moving here cause I was leaving my husband BUT he ended up coming here with me. So though times were fraught I said I'd give it one more go, we even went as far as putting a deposit on a new house in the village here.

BUT my husband has a mistress, I've fought against the bitch for years, I've begged and pleaded with him to give her up to no avail. Every Monday morning he promises to give her up but come Saturday he's off with her again till all hours of the morning and spends most of Sunday with her too. His mistress is an insidious bitch, her name is ALCOHOL.

There comes a time when one has had enough of the lies, the recriminations and the disappointments and literally can give nor take no more and that time is here. I told him he would have to be out by end of this month but after the events of last weekend I brought it forward to this Friday, yesterday. I packed his bags and put them into his car on Thursday night, said goodbye yesterday morning. Got a lift home from one of my colleagues yesterday evening and made myself a cup of tea. Who arrived at 6p.m. - the boyo. I refused to let him in, and i'd taken the house key off his keys the night before. (Be prepapred!) What followed was the usual promises, the pleading to be left in etc but I stood my ground and didn't. No, it wasn't easy but if I gave in now I'd be setting myself up for more of the same, twould be ok for a few weeks and then he'd be off meeting the mistress again and there is no way on this earth I could put myself thru this again, it's done enough damage. Having demanded the sky card - the one bill which goes thru his account - he took himself off to his car. Anyway he refused to leave the yard
and sent a barrage of text messages, most of which I ignored apart from a few saying go away. He spent the night in the car and left this morning at 9.20a.m. I am hoping he doesn't come back this evening but I'm not changing my mind. I know that once all this is over things will get better and I can face future weekends without trepidation and anger.

One of my friends last night told me I have more balls than any man she knows, thanks Julia - I take that as a compliment, it's a pity I've had to grow a pair but needs be when the devil drives!

Special thanks too to Maura and Helen for being there at the end of a phone.

I bought a car on Thursday, it's just a little 1999 peugeot 106, it's silver, very important to get the colour in! Quite honestly thats about all I know about cars. Though when I asked the garage guy to lift the bonnet so I could see under it I make some hmmmmmm noises. Twas Helen who warned me to make sure the tyres were ok and they are, there's 4 new ones under it, I honestly don't have a clue, what was important to me was that it have an NCT, till June of next year, and it's also taxed till May of next year. I got it for a grand having negotiated €200 off the asking price, yah me!!! I got the insurance sorted yesterday and I'll be picking it up after work on Wednesday.

To anyone out there buying a car, getting insurance, buying anything, do please make sure and negotiate a better price, honestly it's well worth it and in these leaner times it will benefit both the buyer and the seller. It might not work at tesco's but you'll know when you can and when you can't :-)

Going to make those two cards and hoping to catch up with some scrapping too. I got a package of lovely papers from CradznScrapz that need playing with and need to do something with the gorgeous pack of Basic Grey Eva papers.

Anyways such is my life at the moment, me and my two cats and Bruce Springsteen playing the soundtrack of our weekend.

Crop Sun 27th january

2008-01-13T18:49:00.000Z

Just a quickie to tell ye there's a crop on Jan 27th. Check out Cork Croppers blog for details.

Cork crop

2007-11-15T21:06:00.000Z

A few places left on the Cork crop on Nov 25th!

Annamarie is bringing along her shop ...way hay!!!

We'll be making a transparent album and it's gorgeous!!

all change...

2007-11-15T10:40:00.000Z

Well it's been a bit since I posted here and it's all change as the title suggests...
Started a new job in a supermarket on Tuesday, full time ! Ya I know.... But needs be when the devil drives and all that! My hours are a bit all over the place at the moment, as there are a few people out sick so I've been drafted into their duties. On Tuesday I started off with the cash office and then in the afternoon I covered tills, yesterday and today I'm just doing tills from 1.45p.m. to 8.15p.m. Not sure about the rest of the week as I am meeting Helen in Tralee on tomorrow afternoon, so they'll either bring me into the cash office in the morning or give me the full day off. I'm continuing private classes with some of my Mallow group on Mondays till Dec 17th so they may incorporate that as a day off which would mean I'd be working a Saturday or a Sunday?? Don't know! Don't know that I'll be getting my gold watch from here when I'm 65 but for the moment it fulfills my needs anyway,,,and that need is cash!!

We are also moving house at the end of the month, renting a bungalow just 1.8 miles from where I work and a hell of a lot cheaper than here! So I'm trying to pack and sort stuff these days. The kitchen, our bedroom and the craft room is whats left to be done so its not too bad and I've booked a few days off that weekend. Christmas day I'll probably be rooting in a box looking for things.

Last Sunday Maura and I went to Lismore, met Janet and Orla for lunchand then to Lora's at the Craft Mills for the Scrapaholics club crop. I managed to do Annamarie's class from the Scrapwest cybercrop and then the class. Will get pics up later! Also came home with some new stash and 3 balls of a gorgeous black velvet yarn to knit a scarf with.

Not long now till Maura is off to the Windy city and she very kindly offered to get some stash for me whilst she's there, so being the clever little bunnies we are we have pre-ordered it and it will be delivered to the hotel, how painless is that? I can't wait for her to come back!! LOL!! I have tons coming, 20 alpahbets!!! amongst the other stuff!

This is the LO I made for last week's Scrapwest, theme was Changing Colours. I used a photo of Maura's and used a few torn strips of yellow cardstock....I rarely use yellow, and then I titled the LO Changing Colours also as the sky has such fab colours in it.

Birthday cards

2007-10-31T15:08:00.000Z

here's the pics of the gorgeous handmade birthday cards I got. Postie just brought another couple and I'll add them later!

2007-10-30T20:41:00.000Z

Blogger is being obliging today!!! Wednesday 31ST so I'm adding the pics that should've been here last night!

Ooops its been a while.... too many blogs to update now, haha!

Well I suppose to start the Cork crop was a great day and further details of it can be seen at Cork Croppers, the blog I've created with all the crop news. I managed to make half a LO, now there's progress!

We made a fabby LO using a pic of the lovely Rebecca.

I also demo-ed how to make a flag book. It was great having Lora from the Craft Mills in Lismore there with her shop, I picked up a few ink pads and clear stamps and Lora gave me a gorgeous wooden rubber stamp which has already been used many times.

I've managed to find a larger room at the Sunset Ridge hotel in Killeens for the November crop so thats great! Looking forward to getting the class materials this week and getting to work on them, have an idea but until one actually has the materials in hand, it's hard to know how it will go.

The Scrapwest cyber crop was brill, fabby classes, I managed to complete 4 of them but will get round to doing them all. I was trying to upload some pics to this but it won't let me :(

Noelle's LO, pic of My Mum on her wedding day 22nd November 1958.

Lainey's class, pic of the first day my two furbabies lay down together.....awwwwwwwwwwww!

Crafteire's class, pic of RobbiRibbon!! (RAY!)

Ruth's class, pic of me and Maura at Crafteire in April.

We were down in Kerry for the weekend and left the two moggies at Comfy kennels, RobbiRay's first "holiday", you should have seen his weekend bag (!), a golf ball, ribbon, foam pad - don't ask!, an t-shirt of mine and 3 bottles of whiska's cat milk, this boy doesn't know how to travel light does he!

Sean, Helen, my aunty Annie (85 yrs young) and I did a table quiz in aid of people in need on Friday night in The Fisherman's and I'm delighted to say we came second...yah us!!! Aunty Annie was gas, I'd write down the answer to the question and in her loudest voice she'd say it out loud.... hmmmm.
Colin, my 7 year old nephew was delighted to see himself in print as a piece I did for the £5 challenge in Scrapbook Inspirations was published this month. I got a spare copy of the mag for him too.
We dined in Cahersiveen's new hotel The Watermarque on Saturday evening and delicious it was! Definitely will get our custom again!
Sunday was a lazy kinda day and Helen and Sheila took Rebecca and Colin to a fancy dress party, Sean went for a walk and a pint ...or two... and I read a book!
Yesterday we demolished an ugly built in wardrobe in Helen's bedroom, and rearranged the room. So much nicer now without the monster in it!
We had a late lunch in the Bridge bar in the village, oh my god their toffee apple cake is to die for....yes the diet is a bit banjaxed!!

Will see tomorrow if I can upload the pics of the LO's and the fab birthday cards I received.

Sunday's crops...

2007-10-18T10:35:00.001+01:00

... will have Lora and her shop The Craft Mills from Lismore, Co Waterford. And she tells me she has got new goodies in for us,,,yesss!!! And wait...there's more....she can take payment by credit card on the day!!

And for those doing the scrapwest Cyber crop...here's the line up. I'll be doing a flag book and will give a demo to the girls at the Cork crop on how to make one.
You can use stash from your own mountain for this class. 3 sheets of cardstock, 1 sheet patterened paper, piece of chipboard at least 8" x 8" and 2 feet ribbon and adhesive. A paper trimmer and a bone folder would also be handy.

Class Times for Scrapwest Cyber crop

8am-9am: Best Freinds Forever by Kate - 6"x4" B&W photo Landscape
9am-10am: Beautiful Bride by Noelle - 5"x7" B&W or Sepia photo Portrait
10am-11am: Lucky Me by Annamarie - 3 photos 3"x2"11am-12pm: You Are My Sunshine by Lainey - 5"x7" B&W photo Landscape
12pm-1pm: Permission by Crafteire - 6"x4" B&W photo Portrait
1pm-2pm: If Friends Were Flowers by Ruth - 5"x7" B&W photo Landscape
2pm-3pm: Play by Eva - 6"x4" photo Landscape
3pm-4pm: Circle Of Friends by Carrie - No photos
4pm-5pm: Jackie's Cards5pm-6pm: Flag Book by Caroline
6pm-7pm: Fancy Framing by Audrey - 7"x5" photo Portrait

Happy Birthday to me...

2007-10-17T16:23:00.000+01:00

yeehah!! I "think" today marks the the age that I've always classed as middle-aged, ugh!, mind you if this is middle age I have a good bit ahead of me to reach the four score and ten that only one ,,,yes one person on my maternal side of the family has reached yet and no one to date on my paternal side though my aunt of 85 is doing her best! Very maudlin talk but then I always think birthdays are a time for reflection and looking back over the last year things couldn't be more different now to then but on the whole a less stressed person now and that has to be good! Totally skint though and thats bad - lol! So the good balances the bad so that must make it good, eh!

Got a load of fabby handmade cards today, all really gorgeous, pics later!

Went to my first book club meet last night, didn't quite know what to expect but I really enjoyed iy, a group of 10 there discussing Nicholas Evan's "The Divide". I had the book for about 3 weeks and was resisting reading it as I felt it wasn't the type of book I'd enjoy and then one day last week being bereft of anything else to read I took the plunge,berating myself for my reluctance to read it. After all the
very ethos of the book club is to make one read something outside of one's usual box. Have to say I quite enjoyed it in the end and it was interesting to hear everyone else's opinion on it. For next month we have a non fiction to read by Sunny Jacobs, an American lady sentenced to death for murders she didn't commit. She spent almost 16 years in prison. Started the book when I went to bed last night at 11.30 and had to put it down at 2 a.m. as my eyes were tired.

2007-10-16T21:31:00.000+01:00

Well it's been a while...Been busy with the Mallow newbie classes and along the way there was Scrapfest, what a great day out, I taught a class with the gorgeous Upsy Daisy papers and used a photo of the grandparents of Sandra who attended my first group in Mallow, she was delighted with the finished LO which I gave her after Scrapfest and is sending it onto her parents in Holland.

Did some fabby shopping, indulged in a set of Autumn leaves clear swirl stamps which I've been hankering after for a while. And I got a gift of a silent setter from Gerardine... thank you pet!!!

I did 3 classes in Scrapfest, Beckie's two and Crafteire's fab double LO and I was lucky enough to swap papers with Lainey for her class and completed the page that night but Maura took it home with her by mistake so I've yet to add a pic to it. (pics later!)

Close up of the cutting out in the class I taught....the girls loved it...not...lol!!! Very effective technique though! Tigger asked if blood was acid free!! I actually don't have a pic of the full LO as I gave it to sandra thinking I had and then discovered I hadn't (twit! lol!) Anyway I have to make it up again for my portfolio!

This is the page I did for Isobel's DD's 21st album, an album Isobel is compiling with words of advise for a 21 yr old.

And these are my last 2 subs for Scrapwest -

Theme was sisters, luckily the weekend Helen and the girls visited they had a lot of black and pink in their weekend cases as I was dying to use these fabby Rusty Pickle Princess Pirate papers.

Yes, so keen on the papers that I used them the following week also for Scrapwest's theme "A stitch in time". The journalling on the photo says, "Natasha, your grandmother was a very talented seamstress and if she saw these ripped jeans you bought she'd have been out with her sewing machine patching them.

This is the scene that awaited me one morning this past week, what a minx this little guy is, always up to something! And no more so than today when he went up on the roof next door round 9.30a.m., couldn't persuade him to come down. Rang the fire brigade...you know the way you sometimes see pics of the fire brigade rescueing kittens up a tree for little old ladies,,,,well not in North Cork. (a) They don't respond to calls like that and (b) if they do there would be a call out charge of €400 so I'm not quite sure if they do respond if you have the said €400 in your ass pocket, anyway i didn't so unless RobbiRay wanted to stay on the roof till I would have it I'd have to find another way down for him. Luckily the Polish couple living a few doors down came to my rescue and he snagged RR with a long fishing net, you know the yokes kids use in rock pools but a grown up version. I was delighted to have him home and I think he was delighted to be back...awww.

I have a gorgeous Maya Road cat shaped chipboard album which was a gift from Sabrina and I'm going to use it to make a diary of RobbiRay's exploits. I'm sure there will be more!

Pic of some of my first Mallow group with the canvas they did on their last day.

Margaret, Teresa, Kathy, Liz, Mary, Yvonne, Jennifer, Helen and Anne.

Tagged...

2007-10-05T11:36:00.001+01:00

I got tagged by Jackie so here goes...

4 Places I Have Worked:

Munster Joinery
SuperValu
Quirke's Newsagents
Dept P&T

4 Places I Have Lived:

Portmagee
Cahersiveen
Naas
Kanturk

4 Places I Have Visited:

USA
Italy
Spain
Greece

4 Favourite Foods:

Prawns Marie Rose (ok prawn cocktail!! lol!)with homemade brown bread.
Lobster with melted butter
Baby new potatoes ( preferably with the lobster and the melted butter!)
Sun dried tomatoes

4 Places I Would Rather Be:

On a beach in the sun
Beside the sea watching waves crash against the rocks
In a lighthouse on a small island {with broadband!}

In the Lottery HQ picking up my 1 million euro winning cheque.

Ok tagging.....Kate, Karen, Jan and Meg

BLOG CANDY WINNER!

2007-10-03T11:21:00.000+01:00

Sorry it's taken me a while to come up with the winner for the blog candy! I hadn't realised what an amount of comments I had and then I had to assign each comment a number. Anyway used a random number generator thingy here on the net to pick a number, it chose 13 and the name opposite that is.....

SABRINA!!!

Congrats Sabrina, a package will be on it's way to you soon!!!

Upcoming blog candy...

2007-09-26T11:50:00.000+01:00

... As I am fast approaching my 10,000th visitor to the blog I will be giving away a wee bit of blog candy to mark the occasion.
The way it will work....It's my constant reader and visitor I would like to reward so for each comment left since the inception of this blog you get one entry in the draw. This continues till I reach visitor no 10,000.

Next Cork crop Sunday 21st October

2007-09-24T12:28:00.000+01:00

The next Cork crop will be held on Sunday 21st October 11 a.m. to 5.30p.m. in the Commoms Inn, New Mallow road, Cork. (just beyond the Blackpool shopping centre on the N20 road to Mallow/Limerick)
Cost for crop/workshop is €25
Tea/coffee, biccies provided.
Bring a packed lunch or a great carvery lunch available in the hotel or just soup or desserts. vending machine outside the crop room too with water, minerals, crisps and chocolate!

I'm delighted to say Lora will be bringing a delectable selection of goodies from the Craft Mills in Lismore!

Places filling fast so contact me to book a place!

First crop!

2007-09-24T11:38:00.000+01:00

A big thank you to Mary, Middy, Bronwen, Tigger, Lora, Deirdre, Valerie, Ruth, Leonietje, MaryL, Linda, Gerardine, June, Stacey, Noreen, Ber, Eva, Kate, Maura and Helen and Mireille for coming to my first crop yesterday, I had a great day and I hope the attendees did too!

Mireille brought a fab selection from the Crafteire shop so a little (lot!) of retail therapy was on the agenda also.

This is the LO we made for yesterday's workshop using the gorgeous Rusty pickle Guenevire papers along with gorgeous making memories shimmer alphabet stickers and perfect pearls, all available from the Crafteire shop.

Thanks to Maura for taking the piccies, I had my camera in my bag but it refused to come out...lol!

Tigger won the small prize for being the first to complete a LO, cheeeky minx thought she'd get away with no title so I sent her back to the drawing board!

And here's a pic of the LO I made for Scrapwest Friday night, the theme was Polka dots

winner...

2007-09-19T11:05:00.000+01:00

...I forgot to post that CARRIE was the winner of my maze book for the Scrapwest blog celebration.

Purple fest!

2007-09-15T10:44:00.000+01:00

Oh dear .... bad blogger alert!!! been kinda up to my eyeballs here but in a good way!

The Mallow classes are going brilliantly well, great enthusiasm shown by all and a load of interest so much so that I''ve been asked to do another 6 week course, yippedy skips! And I've had a few enquiries re other things stemming from that so happy dancing here!

The Cork crop is full and I have a few signed up for the OCtober crop so waiting impatiently here for the papers etc to come in for that - should be here Monday.
We went to Fota Island last Sunday with Maura and Sean's and Maura's cameras came along too - lol!! Sean got me taking pics on his old SLR, god I had forgotten that film runs out, so used to the digital and just shooting away, that said my point and shoot has a small 512mb memory card so it's doesn't hold a whole of shots anyway but a 24 film - ewwwwwww!

I was the the docs on Monday for a review, pleased to say the BP is coming down slightly, I've lost 2 points on the BMI scale and I'm down almost 11lbs since the start, ya I know the tip of the iceberg but its going the right direction anyway.
I discovered a little Aladdin's cave on Tuesday. I had arranged to meet Mary from Craft supplies forum as her hubby makes 12 x 12 box frames and on the way out I spotted someting out of the corner of my eye! It turned out to be the HQ of Craft creation station.So I have a nice little haul to pick up there next Tuesday, I truly have a serious alphabet addiction, I can't remeber the exact loot now but I know I have at least 4 chipboard alphabets and a set of alphabet brads too - sad but they are gorgeous and some of them were on sale so whats a girl to do!!!

I got crafting Thursady night and got a couple of LO's made, I got the gorgeous papers and alphabet from Tigger. At crops we often have a purple/orange swap!!

This first one is a pic I took in Fota, isn't that hydrangea just super!

Then we have my sub for this week's Scrapwest The theme as set by Audrey was the 7 deadly sins so I chose gluttony. RobbiRay couldn't be waiting round for dinnertime one evening and took matters into his own paws and raided the cat food cupboard!

Over on Scrapwest we have a new face this week, Kate has joined us and made a beautiful LO of a handbag, a girl after my own heart is Kate, I love handbags too and we both also share a passion for purple!

I also made 3 cards but only took a pic of one as the other 2 went in the post almost immediately!

Sean managed to get a ticket for tomorrow's All Ireland in Dublin, Cork and Kerry are playing in it. So I'm heading up with him for the spin and a wander round the city whilst he's at the game. For all my disinterest in the sport I will still have my geen and gold flag flying high...if only to grig my Corkonian neighbours. C'mon the KINGDOM !!

Oh and look at this baby.... my precious ....my new mobile, isn't it sweet and pink!!!

A hello and a pic!!

2007-09-05T22:29:00.000+01:00

A big hello to Mary O'Connell who visited my blog and left a comment on my flickr account. Great to hear from you Mary, I remember you and your beautiful cards at Beckie's crop in Oysterhaven. Hope life in Ovens is going well. Thanks for dropping by!

Pic of RobbiRay taken today guarding my scrapping table and stash!! This little guy has really grown, this pic shows his 3 white whiskers on the right hand side of his face, so cute!

Maze mini book

2007-09-05T22:11:00.000+01:00

Here's a maze mini book I made yonks ago. I did post up a pic of the outside at the time and promised to show the inside later, well here we are 5 or 6 months later!!
All the photos were take in Kuehenhoff near Amsterdam in Holland which we visited at easter 2004. Kuehenhoff was so gorgeous, we were so glad my sister persuaded us to go out there.

2007-09-04T22:34:00.001+01:00

Having dreadful PC problem, my video card is fighting for life and losing the battle...computer takes forever to switch on and then the screen flashes on/off, on/off, on/off all the time till eventually it just dies and then I go thru the saga of getting the darned thing to switch on again to get another few minutes from it....sigh!

So whats new.... Well I made it to the final 20 (from 65) in the scrap comp I entered and then I was out, disappointed of course but I was delighted to have made it that far in the midst of such awesome talent. And I learned a lesson along the way....be more emotive in my journalling! Some of the journalling in the round I got eliminated from was powerful, I was reduced to tears by a couple of them.

Maura came up Sunday. We did a bit of crafting, I was SO productive, I made all of one ATC for the day :)

Started the first of the 6 classes with the newbie crafters today, it was a great success, 20 new paper crafters out there - yah!!

Made this LO for Scrapwest a couple of week's ago, It's the first LO of RobbiRay with the journalling from his point of view...see I did say i had learned in that comp!

Scrapwest Blog Celebration!

2007-08-31T23:27:00.000+01:00

Today is Blog celebration day on Scrapwest, pay a visit, there's some great work and some links to cool stuff to be won.

This is what I've made, a maze book, leave a comment below and it could be yours, I'll draw aname from the hat next weekend. (Please excuse the photography as its late!)

Finished front of book, complete with wooden tag for you to add a title, or a letter or whatever takes your fancy. Updated with daylight pic.

How to make it:

Take one sheet of 12 x 12 cardstock, fold in half. Crease with a bone folder.

Bring the edges in to the middle fold and crease again.

Open the sheet of paper out flat, and repeat the folds from the other side so that you end up with 16 squares that are 3" x 3" each.

Starting at left hand side Cut from bottom of cardstock up 3 squares on your card stock. Then at other side TOP of cardstock cut another 3 squares in and finally go to bottom of sheet on the right hand cut in another 3 squares so that now your sheet of cardstock resembles the letter M.

Cut two pieces of chipboard to 3 1/2" x 3 1/2" each.

Cover the chipboard with patterned paper of your choice.

Mitre the edges and adhere to the inside of the chipboard.

Place front and back cover side by side with approx 1/2" space between them.

Cut ribbon to size allowing a few inches free each side of the book covers, attach to front and back cover with adhesive.

Take the folded cardstock and put adhesive on the front and back flap:

Place between the front and back cover and press down firmly.

Decorate the cover as desired.

The little flaps on the inside can be stapled or held together with eyelets and ribbon to hold little tags or whatever and pictures can be added.

Tomorrow I'll post pics of the inside of another maze book I made earlier this year

Cork Crop details...

2007-08-26T21:10:00.000+01:00

My first Cork Crop will be held on Sunday 23rd September from 11a.m. to 5.30p.m. in The Commons Inn, New Mallow Road, Cork.

Cost for the full day crop and workshop is €25. Tea/coffee and homebaking will be available. Lunches are available at the hotel.

Places are limited so please pm me, or email me at carosullivan@eircom.net or phone/text 087 2925710 to reserve a place.

Very limited crop only spaces are available.

Tea/coffee and homebaking will be available. Lunches are available at the hotel. I know some people were interested in Saturdays but the majority opted for Sunday so that is what I'm starting out with but watch this space for news of a Saturday crop.